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Monks March To Home Of Activist

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The Associated Press

Published: September 23, 2007

YANGON, Myanmar - Hundreds of Buddhist monks marched past barricades to the home of Nobel Peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, raising pressure on the junta by symbolically uniting their growing protest movement with the icon of Myanmar's long struggle for democracy.

The two strands of the escalating opposition to Myanmar's military government came together on a tree-lined Yangon street after police unexpectedly let more than 500 monks and other protesters through a roadblock.

Suu Kyi has been seen only by a handful of guards, servants and her doctors for more than four years.

Monks have been marching for the past five days in Myanmar's biggest city and around the country as a month of protests against economic problems under the junta have ballooned into the biggest challenge to its rule in two decades.

By linking their cause to Suu Kyi's activism, which has seen her detained for about 12 of the past 18 years, the monks increase the pressure on the junta to decide whether to crack down or to compromise with the demonstrators.

The government has been handling the well-respected monks' disciplined but defiant protests gingerly, aware that forcibly breaking them up in predominantly Buddhist Myanmar would likely cause public outrage.

'The key is the monks and Aung San Suu Kyi have one thing in common: peaceful protest,' said Larry Jagan, a Bangkok-based journalist specializing in Myanmar. 'They want to see change through peaceful means. What we're seeing is a coming together of the main political force in the country and the main religious leaders.'

The monks stopped briefly in front of Suu Kyi's house and said some prayers before leaving at the other end of the street, said witnesses, who asked not to be named for fear of being harassed by the authorities.

The part of University Avenue where Suu Kyi's house is located has been closed to traffic since Monday. After the monks passed, the road was closed again.

'Today is extraordinary. We walked past lay disciple Daw Aung San Suu Kyi's house today. We are pleased and glad to see her looking fit and well,' a 45-year-old monk told about 200 people at Sule Pagoda in downtown Yangon, Myanmar's biggest city. 'Daw' is an honorific used in referring to older women.

Jagan said the current protests could mean Myanmar is on the verge of change: 'The fact that the monks are coming out is going to give people confidence.'

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